We are Donald and Charity and we are so honored that you are taking the time to get to know a little bit about us.  We love one another very much and are grateful to be best friends.  God has blessed us to have one biological child, Zoe (7).   Zoe is precocious, kind, and ready to be a big sister, but she's made it unmistakably clear, she cannot come in close proximity to poop. 

Children change everything, don't they?  We recognize and respect this difficult and important decision you are making and we want you to know your courage is commendable to us.  We covered you in prayer before we started this process, even though we have not yet met you.  The Lord's hand is navigating something far beyond our imaginations.  When we married, we never once thought it would be such a challenge for us to grow our family, but we see now that God is using our challenge to His glory, and we are at peace with that.  We know it was the Lord working in you to choose life for this child.  You did not have to, and yet you did. 

We hope that you will be comforted in your spirit as you turn through these pages and get to know us and our support system: a wonderful mesh of unique extended family, amazing church family and delightfully quirky friends. If you decide to place with us, we will wholeheartedly devote ourselves to giving that special little person the life you dream for them.  We will love them and recognize continually the love you have for them.  We are co-authoring the story of a wonderful child, after all.  We are mutually interested in the man or woman this child will become.  

Do know that we (Donald and Charity) are not perfect people, but we know God is perfect and we trust His will.  We rely on Him greatly to direct our family's path.  We trust He has His hand on our marriage and that He is doing something quite intentional with our family. Our home is filled with love, honesty, perseverance, forgiveness, laughter, structure and reliability, but not by any spectacular flexing of our own will or expertise: the Lord has guided it all.  We hope that this book can give you some insight into who we are and perhaps you may actually want to meet with us in the near future.  But if not, just remember: you are covered in prayer.  

In Christian Love,
Donald & Charity

While we wait for the manifestation of our prayers, we’ve gone nuts cleaning and re-cleaning, decorating and re-decorating the nursery.  At the beginning of our adoption journey, we were a bit flummoxed by the whole “gender-neutral” decorating challenge.  We didn’t know what that meant.  Nonetheless, after much time on Pinterest, we've made some progress.   By allowing ourselves to focus on the room's purpose and to envision the types of experiences we want to happen in that space, we've come up with some pretty creative (yet simple) ideas.  

1.  Elephants - There were some mixed opinions on whether elephants were too "boy" or "girl" themed, but we decided to go with this theme because of the wonderful associations humans makes with elephants.  Elephants never forget.  Elephants keep bonds forever.  Elephants protect their families.  While searching on Amazon, we found an adorable bed set featuring this wonderful animal and stars!  Yes!  Stars!  So many of us associate stars with hope, dreams, aspirations and exponential thinking.  Once we found this bed set, everything else just fell into place.  Right now, we have the bumpers on the crib since they're so stinking cute, but we will remove them once there is a little dreamer sleeping in the crib.  Safety first!

2. Plants - Why not put something living in this room?  Something that will help keep the air pure.  Pothos perfection!  I found a great macrame plant hanger that we will use to dangle the plant securely from the ceiling after all of the wall decor is finalized.  (More on that topic shortly.)

3. Double-seater rocking chair - We want Zoe to feel included in the bonding process, so we searched and searched and found a comfy, cushioned double-seater rocking chair that matches the neutral beige and gray of the room.  Sometimes, we go into the room to sit and rock in the chair, imagining what the new bedtime routine might feel like.  (Zoe calls it "practice".)  We've said prayers from that chair.  

4. Minimalism - We really do not want to overload the room with bulky furniture or items we simply don't need.  There is the dresser, which we are securely fastening to the wall to ensure the room is a hazard-free zone.  After that, the chair, crib and cute elephant ottomon, which doubles as a storage space.  (Yasss!)  Nothing else other than those things will occupy floor space.  We have chosen not to have a changing table this time around.  (In the past, this item took up so much space in Zoe's nursery.)  Instead, we are going to do an under-the-crib rolling trundle changing station, which we feel is extremely safe and the best usage of space.  Also, we don't want to put tons of things onto the walls at this stage.  We're keeping it clean and simple.

5. Functionality - Piggybacking off of our minimalism theme, we'd also like the space to be one where everything in the room actually has a purpose (as opposed to simply looking cute). A friend of ours is a carpenter and he is building for us a pegboard (like the one attached below), to store items we may need to access quickly and to showcase some cute decor.  We are excited.  We will definitely post a finished picture once we get the custom board mounted.  

We're not done, but this is where we are heading.  We will certainly add more updates and photos as we progress.

God's blessing on you.  

It’s not easy waiting.  I hope it’s okay to say that. 

Prayer definitely helps us.  Donald, Zoe and I, we pray together each night and when we pray, we say the same thing over and over again.  I think the Lord will bless our importunity.

We say, “Thank you, God, for the baby that will be added to this family.  Bless this child.  Bless this child’s birth mother and birth father.  Bless them with health and hope.  If it is your will, Lord, use us.  Use every single one of us in this triad for your glory.”

Saying this prayer helps us respect the journey the Lord has in mind for this child and for all of us who are a part of this child's story.  We simply cannot compare ourselves to other people.  This story - the story we share - is unique.  There is peace in knowing that.  

A few weeks ago, we wanted to go to Busch Gardens.  It was raining, so we contemplated cancelling our plans.   After some discussion, however, we decided to brave the weather.  "Grab the ponchos," I said.  

It turned out to be a wondrous day.  We laughed so much.  We snuggled closely in the safari car.  It was as if we had the whole park to ourselves.  

"Mommy, Daddy?" Zoe said from the back seat as we made our way home. "Thank you.  I had so much fun," she mumbled as she drifted off to sleep.

Live now.

Make the memories now.  

We hosted the family gathering at our home this year. Games, both indoors and outside.  Gingerbread cookie decorating competition: Aunt Lisa won.  The menu consisted of bacon wrapped scallops, fried prawns, cornish hens, crab legs and lots of sides.  We made everything gluten free and dairy free, too.  It was pretty yummy.

It was our first Christmas without Jai.  It felt different. We certainly miss him.  Every day we miss him.  What touched me the most was that my brother and sister-in-law included his name on their Christmas card to us.  When I saw that, my heart beamed, because we had included his name in the card we had just handed them.  Jai will always be with us.  We will see Jai again.  In the meantime, we live this life and look forward to that day.  

I remember a lot of weird and random things from my childhood, like the phone number to Time Life Magazine for you to get a glass clock with your subscription if you signed up by the end of March, 1983.  The number was 1-800-525-5500.   The reason why I remember it is because of how it made me feel.  I loved the idea of giving my parents that glass clock.  The idea of gifting them something.  We grew up pretty poor, so I knew I couldn't buy them anything, but (in my mind) I could gift them that FREE GLASS CLOCK.  (I didn't understand that one had to purchase the magazine subscription.)  The number was tucked away into the recesses of my brain because I linked it with hope, love, excitement, expression.  When I recited the number in my head, I felt the meter of it, the rhythm.  The percussion fused with the beat of my heart.  Just say it:

one-eight hundred

five-two-five

five-five hundred

free-glass-clock  

I mean, you can totally double-dutch to the rhythm of that thing, right?

I listen to a lot of podcasts.  One of my favorites is Jim Kwik, the meta-learning guru.  He talks about how we assume people know how to learn, when learning needs to be taught in and of itself.  The process of learning needs to be understood.  In one podcast, he said something that I found to be very profound.  He said, "Learning is linked to emotion.  We may not remember things we learned at school, but we always remember how something made us feel.  If we can tie information to (positive) feeling, we will learn and retain more.  People who have felt pain with the learning experience eventually will want nothing to do with learning...because it hurts.  They never forget that hurt." 

That statement resonated with me. 

How do we keep our children's spirits open to learning?  Fill them with love.  Create within them a growth mindset.  Equip them with the ability and tools to make learning a playground where they can find a fascination with anything and everything. Let them know mistakes are human and we can learn and rebound from mistakes.

Zoe had a (fairly difficult) science test on human anatomy about a month ago.  (Yes, she is in second grade and she was learning things I didn't learn until middle school.) She was overwhelmed and honestly, had little hope of doing well on the test.  

We sat down and looked at the terms together.  

Pelvis: the large cradle-shaped bone that connects to the end of the spine and where the hips and legs attach.  

I had to make this fun for her.

I YouTubed Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock".  We watched.  She loved it.  She copied his moves.  

"Zoe," I said.  "Elvis is the pelvis."  

Her eyes widened.  The light went on.  

Next terms: ligament and tendon

"Goodness gracious," I thought to myself.  

Ligament: the fibrous tissue that connects bones with one another. 

Tendon: the tissue that connects muscles to the bone.

I channeled a Busta throwback and rewrote ligament's defintion to come up with the rhythmic phrase, "a ligament is bone to bone".  I had her repeat it over and over to keep the bassline of the jam we were devising.  I then did some overlay and started singing, "What connects the muscle to the bone?  That's a tendon."   We started dancing.  I tapped a little beat on my chest to "hype up the rib cage rage".  Oh, y'all!  We had a concert on the human anatomy.  

Drat, I wish there was a way to attach an audio file of what we created.  Top ten, ya'll.  Top ten on the charts!   It's hard to capture the magnitude of how phat our anatomy jam was, but I can assure you, the information became memorable.  Our experience was memorable.  

She passed her test.  We all celebrated her tenacity.

Weeks later, Zoe was in the kitchen and said randomly, "Mommy, remember Elvis, the Pelvis"?  

Donald is a good man.  He doesn't see himself, though.  He pushes through, even when he's exhausted.  He cares tremendously about helping people.  Sometimes, I just watch him.  He's not aware that I watch him, but I do.  I watch him sitting there on the sofa, thumbing through his Bible or Bible study tool apps, preparing lesson plans, making mental notes of things he wants to share with us as a family. 

He wants to know. 

He wants to know how to be a better man, even though I'd never trade him for another.  

He wants to know how to be a better father, even though Zoe runs to him every time she happens to see him in the hallways at school.  

May the Lord bless you forever and ever, Donald.  I want to witness what He does with you.  I just want to see.  

I love you, Sweet Bear.  

Thank you for taking the time to learn about our family and who we are as individuals.  If you choose to have us parent your child, you can rest in your heart knowing this: we trust in God, even through tough times; we love one another, even when we get on one another’s nerves; we listen to one another, even when we’d rather be telling our position; we tell the truth, even when it’s hard to say; we protect one another, even if we are a little afraid ourselves; we believe in one another, speaking louder than any doubts; we sacrifice for one another, for God will provide; we lift one another up, even when we’re tired; we keep our hearts open to one another, even when we’re mad; we forgive one another, for we have been forgiven; we talk to God and He is our best friend.  We prayed for God to bless you with wisdom and for Him to keep His hand on you as you make this decision.

God bless you always,

Donald, Charity, Zoe and Mouse